K Annamalai: Tamil Disrupter

ON SOCIAL MEDIA as well as on the pages of national dailies, former police officer K Annamalai has cornered more attention than any other opposition leader ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. In the 2021 Assembly polls, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 77 of the 234 seats in Tamil Nadu, of which 66 were won by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) senior ally, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazha­gam (AIADMK), and just four by the saffron outfit. However, Annamalai, who unsuccessfully contested the Aravakurichi Assembly seat, soon came to represent his party’s outsized ambi­tions, essaying bold strokes on a canvas dominated by Dravidian parties. No BJP leader contesting from Tamil Nadu has attracted the kind of wide-ranging support that Annamalai, who is just 39 and has been in politics for less than four years, has been able to muster from businessmen, techies, youth, religious Hindus, and voters looking for an alternative to the DMK-AIADMK models. The reason: he has the aura of someone who can possibly redeem BJP from its low single-digit vote share and make it the main opposition, articulating a cultural idiom that is the antithesis of the state’s Periyarist legacy.

Even voters like M Nagaraj, a 43-year-old auto-rickshaw driver who has always backed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), are in­trigued. Waiting for Annamalai to arrive at a Bharat Petroleum petrol station in Chinnamettupalayam in north Coimbatore, Nagaraj says he is inclined to give the young leader a chance. “I don’t believe his promises, but I believe his intentions are good. I have an 18-year-old daughter and a 20-year-old son and they have become fans of his, so I came to see what the man looks like,” says Nagaraj. With his dark complexion and angry-young-man attitude, Annamalai seems to evoke shades of Rajinikanth with his appeal among the younger voters.

A group of drummers dressed in saffron has been engaged to keep the spirits high as a small crowd files in, joining a hand­ful of older party workers and supporters, most of them sporting namam or vibhuti, already present at the spot. There are young IT workers in shorts and jeans and curious locals, college students who have recently joined the party, auto drivers, men in Rash­triya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pants, and Adidravidar women with children in tow from the neighbourhood. Cut-outs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Annamalai are handed out, along with bottles of water, biscuits, and other snacks. It is 11AM and the BJP state president is over two hours late and, slowly, locals begin to occupy the balconies and terraces of neighbour­ing buildings. The anticipation builds, and Annamalai finally arrives to a genial welcome. His unsmiling, serious aspect makes him appear like a man-on-a-mission, and he speaks for a few short minutes. In that time, he promises to build toilets for Scheduled Caste (SC) Adidravidar homes under Swachh Bharat within a month. People cannot seem to stop taking selfies and the crowd manager, speaking from the campaign vehicle, strikes a hopeful note as he requests them to return after the election for photographs with their newly elected representative.

“Many young people in Coimbatore believe Annamalai is turning the party around and this energy is visible,” says RMB Muthuraman, a 35-year-old project manager at an IT company near here. A long-time BJP sup­porter, he is excited about the party’s prospects in Tamil Nadu. Infrastructure in the northern fringes of the city has come up rapidly in the past decade, with many IT parks set up to house compa­nies like Amazon, Cognizant, and Bosch. While ad­mitting that Tamil Nadu, under Dravidian rule, leads in development indicators, including education and healthcare access, Muthuraman says Hindus often feel slighted by the statements and actions of the Dravidian parties and have been on the lookout for an alternative. “That alternative now exists,” he says.

“Every night at dinner, my parents and I argue over Annamalai. I believe Tamil Nadu needs change while they continue to vote for DMK, even though they said they would support BJP if the Ram temple was built,” says another young IT worker. He is part of a volunteer organisation, People for Annamalai, which has come up in Coimbatore to help the for­mer IPS officer get elected, with professionals from across the world reportedly taking sabbaticals to chip in for the campaign. Annamalai’s profile has received a boost with the leader sharing the prime spot on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s roadshows, an indicator of how much BJP has invested in him.

The euphoria around the high-voltage battle, however, will be challenging electoral history. Coimbatore has been a Marxist and Congress stronghold, with DMK and AIADMK winning a few times. Following the communal riots in 1997 and the bomb­ings of 1998—by Islamist group Al Ummah, which killed 58 and intended to target a meeting to be addressed by BJP leader LK Advani—the party gained ground and CP Radhakrishnan was elected MP. In 2004, CPI’s K Subbarayan wrested Coimbatore from BJP and the Communist Party of India’s (Marxist), or CPM, PR Natarajan has since represented the constituency twice. In 2019, Natarajan beat Radhakrishnan by 1.79 lakh votes. Of the six Assembly segments in the constituency, AIADMK holds five, with BJP’s Vanathi Srinivasan representing Coimbatore South. Annamalai, therefore, cannot afford to underestimate his ri­vals—the unassuming Ganapathi P Rajkumar of DMK and the young and suave Singai Ramachandran of AIADMK.

“In a Lok Sabha seat, there are about 1,500 booths. The thou­sands of booth-level agents are the ones who do the real work as the candidate cannot personally reach lakhs of people. BJP doesn’t have that kind of organisational base in Tamil Nadu,” says Salem Dharanidharan, a DMK spokesperson. “Besides, our party’s decision to field grassroots candidates in western Tamil Nadu is sure to resonate with voters,” he argues. DMK has re-jigged its choices, choosing to field Rajkumar, a former AIADMK leader and Coimbatore mayor, over R Mahendran, an ex-aide of actor Kamal Haasan who was vying for the ticket. It has also fielded K Easwarasamy, a union council secretary, from Pollachi, denying the ticket to sitting MP K Shanmugasundaram. In Erode, which DMK has thus far allotted to its allies, the party is testing the waters with KE Prakash. AIADMK, too, has made an interesting choice in Coimbatore, fielding a non-Kongu Vellala Gounder against Gound­er candidates in an attempt to consolidate votes of other communi­ties and to dispel its image of being a Gounder-dominated party.

After wrapping up the morning campaign with a short speech at Saravanampatti, which is part of the Goundampa­layam Assembly segment of Coimbatore, Annamalai addresses a press conference where every word becomes national news— from statements on local issues like the decline of powerlooms due to high electricity tariffs, and a promise to set up a textile park in Somanur and an automobile cluster, to allegations that the Election Commission was refusing permission for BJP ad­vertisements. Responding to a question about DMK’s scheme to provide free breakfast to schoolchildren, he says the programme is not a DMK invention but inspired by provisions under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. “DMK will also say that there was no civilisation before the party came to be established. Don’t believe all their claims,” he said, hitting out at the ruling party with the acerbic wit he has come to be known for. He also asserted that only he could persuade the Central government to implement the Anaimalaiaru-Nallaru water project at a cost of ₹10,000 crore to ease Coimbatore’s water woes. The go-getter attitude and fighting spirit have endeared Annamalai to BJP supporters and the party leadership which has cast him in a deus-ex-machina role in Tamil Nadu.

“One cannot help but feel that electing an MP who is aligned with the powers-that-be at the Centre will be beneficial to Co­imbatore at large,” says K Venkatachalam, chief advisor to the Tamil Nadu Spinning Mills Association. “Before Covid, we were clothing the entire West, but a lack of demand since then, partly because of the Ukraine war, has hit us badly. The Tamil Nadu government’s unfriendly attitude, including successive power tariff hikes, has worsened the situation. Thirty per cent of the 2,000-odd medium and large mills in Tamil Nadu have shut down,” he says. Coimbatore alone has 300-400 mills employing at least one lakh workers. Small mills, the main source of liveli­hood in rural areas, have all but shut shop. “Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have been extending massive subsidies to their textile sector, making Tamil Nadu textiles less competitive,” Venkatachalam points out.

THERE ARE THOSE who differ. “BJP is a villain for small businessmen like me who have suffered greatly because of GST [Goods and Services Tax]. I will vote for DMK be­cause it is the only party here that has consistently fought BJP on federal and taxation issues,” says K Gangadharan, a 42-year-old from Chinthamanipudur who runs a hardware store. “Engine oil should be changed every 2,500-3,000km but now people don’t change it until the vehicle stalls. No one has the money to spare for maintenance,” he says. Most products Gangadharan deals in fall in the 28 per cent GST slab. “Business has shrunk by half in the past decade. I have considered alternative livelihoods, but I have two school-going children and I am worried about their future.”

In the Sulur Assembly segment, DMK candidate Rajkumar is addressing a small crowd of locals in the shade of a neem tree in Rayarpalayam. Against Annamalai’s lone-hero narrative, Rajkumar hits the streets with panchayat leaders, booth commit­tee members and community leaders who gather feedback on gov­ernment schemes and development works and articulate the com­munity’s needs. “What is BJP going to do here? They do not have representatives in local bodies, or MLAs. We have local leaders. I am from Coimbatore and I am here to stay,” he says, before taking up a list of demands—for land patta, local temple maintenance, and roads. He has an unhurried way about him, and he seems to want to connect with the people rather than rise above them. “When we started campaigning, I was extremely surprised by the warm welcome we got from women in places like Sulur and Palladam, which are considered AIADMK strongholds. We have asked Thalaivar Stalin to increase the monthly assistance amount for older women from ₹1,000 to ₹2,000 so they don’t have to burden their families,” Rajkumar says. “We have always been strong in urban segments, and our rural push this time should send us to victory with a margin of over two lakh votes.”

DMK might claim AIADMK is its main opponent, but while it pitches local issues, BJP is banking on a larger national narrative and its unique politico-cultural pitch that embraces Sanatana values and the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.

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